Born to Rule: Royal Births in Tudor and Stuart England

This summer, Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, is due to give birth to an heir to the throne. In this pair of lectures, leading historians explore how Tudor and Stuart monarchs begat children. We’ll go from throne to bedchamber, from weddings to ballads as we examine how Henry VIII’s fertility struggles and the scandal over the “warming pan baby” shed light on the history of fertility, pregnancy and childbirth in the British Isles.

Lecture 1 Henry VIII: The Quest for an Heir, given by Peter Jones
Lecture 2 Mary of Modena: A Royal Scandal, given by Mary Fissell

Born to Rule is presented by Generation to Reproduction, a research group at University of Cambridge that is studying the history of reproduction with funding from the Wellcome Trust.